Top Donors to Joint Fundraising Vehicles: Overwhelmingly Republican

On Tuesday, the Senate leaders from each party spoke to their colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, sharing their contrasting views on the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions that have loosened campaign finance restrictions. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have long clashed in this area — and they also know which side their bread is buttered on: This election cycle, the biggest donors giving to the types of committees most directly affected by the April McCutcheon v. FEC decision are overwhelmingly Republican.

Joint fundraising committees — a convenient way for congressional leaders to collect funds for multiple candidates and/or party committees from donors in one fell swoop — are surging: They raised $390 million in the first five quarters of the two-year cycle, about as much as they had brought in throughout the entire last midterm election. There are 452 registered JFCs so far, which is 70 more than existed throughout the 2010 cycle.

Because of the Supreme Court’s McCutcheon ruling, which lifted the limits on an individual’s overall donations to candidates, PACs and parties, these committees now have the potential to raise colossal amounts. Donors can simply give a large check to a single committee charged with allotting the funds to partner committees. They spread the wealth and boost the political capital of those who collect money for colleagues through their JFCs.

These vehicles were already trending, bringing in a record $1.1 billion in the 2012 presidential cycle, more than double the 2008 level. Both parties were avid practitioners: Romney Victory and Obama Victory Fund collected unprecedented amounts, raising about $490 million and $460 million respectively. During that cycle, Obama’s campaign collected $180 million from JFCs, about $35 million more than Romney’s.

But this year, there’s been a clear shift in the profile of JFC contributors, with Republicans topping the list of the heftiest donors. So far this cycle, the top 20 deep-pocketed contributors to the joint committees are all giving to conservatives. In contrast, during the 2012 cycle four of the top five donors to JFCs were giving to Democrats.

And the Republican donors giving to JFCs are increasingly generous, whereas Democratic JFCs are on a reverse trajectory. In the last cycle, the median donation amount for both conservative and liberal donors was the same: half of all individuals gave more than $500. Now, the profiles of these contributors are evolving in opposite directions. So far this time around, half of the conservative JFC donors gave more than $1,000, while among liberal donors, that median diminished to $250.

One possible reason: the Republican leadership’s determination to weed out insurgent primary challengers. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has had his share of tangles with tea party-aligned lawmakers, has already raised $20.4 million through his Boehner for Speaker Committee. Several Republican JFCs are gathering a big following on behalf of potential presidential candidates. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio‘s Rubio Victory Committee leads the pack with almost 2,600 individual donors. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) is also gathering a considerable following through his Ted Cruz Victory Committee, which has received money from more than 1,000 individuals so far. (Rubio and Cruz, along with their leadership PACs, are the only beneficiaries of contributions to their JFCs thus far.)

The Tuesday hearing examined a constitutional amendment drafted by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.), which would allow Congress to regulate both contributions and expenditures in elections. Reid has already declared that he intends to bring the bill to a floor vote.

During his testimony, Reid deplored the impact of the Supreme Court rulings, which he said “have left the American people with a status quo in which one side’s billionaires are pitted against the other side’s billionaires.” In the past, he’s regularly pointed a finger at conservative donors, specifically billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, who have spent considerable amounts to back Republican candidates and have become scapegoats for the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, conservatives have lambasted the bill as a blow to the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. For McConnell, who also testified Tuesday, the text is a “dangerous proposal to dramatically weaken one of our most precious freedoms.” In 2003, the Minority Leader sued the Federal Election Commission in an attempt to overturn restrictions contained in a major campaign finance overhaul bill passed the year before.

The new measure, which requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House and Senate and approval by three-quarters of the states to be added to the Constitution, will likely peter out soon after these high-profile Senate squabbles. But behind the rhetoric, the two parties may have good reasons to disagree on the merits of the recent Court decisions — their donor bases just aren’t the same.

Research for this post was provided by Andrew Mayersohn and Doug Weber.

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Viveca Novak
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